Thermal investigation of a thermoelectric cooler based on Arduino and PID control approach

Abstract

In this study, an experimental and numerical approach is used in order to evaluate the thermoelectric cooler (TEC) control performance and efficiency. For this purpose, the refrigeration system is designed by using the semi-conductor material operating under Peltier effect, and Arduino device. The efficiency of the system is investigated through the performance coefficient and temperature span for carrier fluid between the hot and cold exchanger by using the prototype developed recently at Medea University. In addition, the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) is used in order to maintain temperature control and heat transfer of the system TEC in a closed-loop through the driving circuit, which is specially designed for the TEC can conveniently adjust the input current, which passes through the refrigerator so as to fully make use of quick cooling power advantages. The main obtained results including, the maximum coefficient of performance registered is 0.73 to 0.1 with a temperature span about of 51 °C, by inputting current of 5 A within a control temperature range 0–30 °C, while targeting a temperature of 5 °C at room temperature for the proposed control system had a control time of 21 s, with only a discrepancy of ±0.1 °C. The experimental results confirm that during the time interval 0–20 min, the inside temperature of thermoelectric refrigerator has been decreased rate of 1.5 °C/min. It was shown through the different simulation results with PID controller by taking kp = 0.9, ki = 0.15, and kd = 0, that the cooling temperature decreases over time to 5 °C, which means that these systems work in time-dependent conditions. The proposed controller is able to reach an error of 0.1 °C with minimal overshoot under than 20 s.